CMI Enterprise serves the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and chemical industries. The company has also had opportunities to expand its other process equipment and heat exchanger business for the high purity and power generation industries. This type of process equipment involves the manufacture of small diameter, thin wall, SS tubing ranging from 1/2 to 3in, in materials including titanium, duplex SS, and Inconel. The largest pipes have 6in diameters. The company researched ways in which it could consistently weld these small diameter, thin wall tubes at an accelerated pace to keep up with increasing demand. The EHEDG guidelines suggest the use of orbital welding wherever possible in the pharmaceutical and food processing equipment. For the process equipment and heat exchanger projects, CMI selected orbital welding equipment from Polysoude. A welder can make more welds per day because the weld presents a regular geometry without overlay, and requires no secondary operations, such as grinding or cleaning. In addition, because the orbital welding equipment is automated, welders can monitor several welding units simultaneously. Since that time, CMI has employed orbital welding on tubes from 5mm to 60mm on materials like titanium, Inconel, and SS 304 and 316 in its plant. It has used orbital welding equipment in the fabrication of entire processing plants, boiler systems, skidded assemblies, clean rooms, and large heat exchangers. Currently, the plant’s primary activity revolves around tube diameters between 1 and 3in.
